'You can't get out': Mentally ill languish in California jails without trial or treatment
LOS ANGELES — John Haasjes was having a bad Christmas.
It was 2020, and he thought his downstairs neighbor was spying on him. They exchanged words, and she called the cops. He was arrested on suspicion of making a verbal threat and booked into a Kern County jail.
Haasjes has a developmental delay and schizoaffective disorder. The 58-year-old Tehachapi man has been in and out of mental health facilities most of his life. But he had never been convicted of a crime, and he said he didn't really understand the felony charge against him.
Authorities soon acknowledged the same. In March 2021, Haasjes was declared "incompetent to stand trial."
The legal designation meant Haasjes could not understand the court process for determining his guilt or innocence. It meant he was entitled to mental health treatment before he could stand trial. It also should have meant his prompt transfer to a state hospital or treatment program to receive care — but it did not.
Like thousands of other mentally ill detainees incarcerated across California in recent years, Haasjes instead languished in jail, where he was denied trial or proper treatment from the Department of State Hospitals for more than a year. He was only transferred to a hospital in February, after his cousin, a retired social worker, testified about his lack of care before state lawmakers, and his case was suddenly fast-tracked.
Others have fared much worse.
According to a decade of legal filings reviewed by the Los Angeles Times and interviews with mental health advocates,
